Volumetric and morphometric MRI findings in patients with mild traumatic brain injury

Abstract

Objective: This study compared cortical and sub-cortical volumes between patients with complicated (i.e. presence of intracranial abnormality on the day-of-injury CT) and uncomplicated (i.e. absence of intracranial abnormality) mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) 4 weeks post-injury. The study hypothesized regionally decreased brain volumes and reduced cortical thickness in patients with complicated MTBIs compared with uncomplicated MTBI.

Methods: This study was part of a larger 2 years cohort study on MTBI. Baseline clinical and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data were compared for those with complicated and uncomplicated MTBI. It identified 168 patients with MTBI (90 uncomplicated and 78 complicated), aged 16–65 years. 3T MRI-system (Signa HDxt, GE Medical Systems, Milwaukee, WI) and cortical reconstruction and volumetric segmentation by FreeSurfer software have been used.

Results: No significant differences between uncomplicated and complicated MTBIs were found in neuroanatomic volumes and cortical thickness after controlling for age, gender and education. The complicated MTBI group showed larger ventricles compared with the uncomplicated group, but this effect diluted when adjusting for potential confounders.

Conclusion: The study findings suggest that the classification of complicated and uncomplicated MTBI may be too broad to differentiate volumetric and morphometric effects of injury in the early post-injury phase.

Keywords:

• Mild brain injury
• concussion
• radiology
• neuroimaging
• intracranial injury
• cortical thickness

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all of the patients who took time to participate in the study. We also thank radiograph Anne-Hilde Farstad for practical MRI assistance and the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Oslo University Hospital for institutional and financial support.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.